


biting the bullet

by youcouldmakealife



Series: it's a setup [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, YCMAL 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: He considers, amends the search to ‘how to ask out a friend’. It autofills with an added ‘without ruining a friendship’, which is probably a good call. Thanks google.
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Series: it's a setup [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669567
Comments: 39
Kudos: 304





	biting the bullet

Things kind of fall into a groove. The Scouts win, and win, and win some more, and since Owen comes and joins them if the wins are at home, he’s been practically adopted by the team. Even Scratch is perfectly friendly to him, like that stuff at the beginning was a fluke. It’s all pretty good, but the thing is: it kind of needs to stop.

Not the winning, obviously, and definitely not Owen joining them, but as the end of the season starts to loom, Joey feels more and more pressure to, well, not be friends with Owen. Or, not just be friends, not be friends with a constant thread of ‘does he want to be more?’. He’s worried it’s going to get in his head in the lead up to playoffs. Not that the Scouts are in danger — hell, they could lose half their remaining games and still win the President’s Trophy, they’re in, one win away from that 99.99% becoming an ‘x’, so it’s not one of Joey’s concerns — but that the ‘Would he want to? Would he not want to?’ would hang over his head, a shadow that would be more distracting than a new relationship or the sting of rejection. 

He decides he’ll ask Owen if he’s interested the night they win the President’s Trophy. It gives him a bit of a time buffer to prepare a good way of doing it so he doesn’t stumble over his own tongue, maybe ask for some advice — Willy may laugh at him, but he also knows what he’s talking about — steel himself if Owen’s not interested, keep reminding himself that even if he isn’t, as long as Owen wants to stay friends, that’s a good thing. 

Owen’s a good friend, truly, and Joey’s lucky to have him in his life in whatever form that takes. Saving it for the night of the President’s Trophy win — or, Joey guesses, the next home win after, if it’s on the road — also means that there’ll be a crowd he can disappear into, which would make it easier for the both of them if Owen isn’t interested.

Apparently Joey’s already taking it for granted that Owen’s going to reject him, which makes it hard to psych himself up about asking him out. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and he knows Owen well enough now to know that if Owen does reject him, he’ll be kind about it, and he won’t hold it against Joey. 

He reminds himself of that. A lot. He has a lot of chances to as well, because the Scouts drop three straight games, like Joey has cursed them. 

It’s a little inconvenient. The losses themselves, obviously — again, they’re pretty much guaranteed first overall, and even if they don’t get it, the only team that’s still in spitting distance of them is in the Eastern Conference, so if they did lose it they wouldn’t lose home-ice advantage until the Cup Finals at the earliest. Which — now makes Joey feel like he cursed them even more.

But the problem with having extra time to hype himself up is that it also means he has extra time to work himself up, and he’s way better at the second thing than the first. The worst part is usually he’d use Scratch to help him hype himself up, but even though Scratch has acted perfectly normally around Owen the couple times they’ve been around one another, he still gets weird when Joey talks about him, so Scratch advice is out. 

It’s an odd feeling to have something banging around in his head that he can’t tell Scratch about. And he’s reluctant to ask Willy, even though he knows Willy would give good advice, not that he ever actually commits to anyone himself. And the only guy he knows who could give him advice about asking out another guy is — well, Owen, so that’s obviously not an option.

The thing is, Joey’s never actually asked someone out before. Okay, that’s not true: he asked Laura Ortega out in junior high after her friends pretty much peer pressured him into it, and they went on one movie date and then basically avoided the shit out of one another in the halls and thankfully went to different high schools, so that probably doesn’t count. He’s definitely never asked out someone he has feelings for. Zach’s the one who asked him out, and by ‘asked out’ Joey means propositioned him when they were both plastered at a party thrown by Joey’s teammate’s girlfriend’s co-worker or something like that. Joey can’t even call himself rusty at this — you probably need to have actually _done_ it before to call yourself rusty.

So he does the exact same high school bullshit he did when he first realized he liked Owen: he goes to the how-to guides. Not that they helped the first time — Joey’s in this exact situation in the first place because they didn’t work last time. But then, they might have if Joey had actually listened to any of their advice about getting over someone, especially the ‘disengage’ part. Joey ignored that bit so hard that Owen has not only met all of Joey’s teammates, he also has the numbers of a few of them. Apparently he’s been sending Trigger music recommendations.

Most of the guides he reads are useless, all about asking people out if you don’t already hang out with them. If Joey asked if Owen was busy for dinner Owen would say yes, or no, and then think nothing of it. He considers, amends the search to ‘how to ask out a friend’. It autofills with an added ‘without ruining a friendship’, which is probably a good call. Thanks google.

Literally the first answer is ‘go for it, but don’t be creepy about it’, which seems like sound, if obvious advice. Most of the answers involve anecdotes about it working out, or the friendship staying strong even though their friend wasn’t interested, which is good. That’s good.

Joey shuts his laptop, knocks his head on it a few times.

_why is dating so hard_ , Joey texts Casey.

_dont ask me_ , Casey replies, which: fair. _did you ask owen out?_

_psyching myself up_ Joey says, and she replies with a few thumbs up along with _why is there no cheerleader emoji thats stupid rah rah rah go joey_

It’s possibly the saddest psych up ever, but he feels a little better anyway.

They win their next game, clinching their playoff spot, and usually that’d be something to celebrate, but the guys are all holding out for that trophy. Win the game after that, which clinches the number one spot in the West, and time is ticking away on Joey, because with Tampa dropping two straight at home, all they need is not to lose their next game in regulation and they’ve got the President’s Trophy. Considering their next game is on the road, as are three following that, they’re almost without a doubt going to win it while they’re away from home, which kind of sucks, but Joey knows from experience that just means the next home win is going to be a giant fucking party.

He tells Owen about it over brunch, along with some of the embarrassing stories from years past. Not his own, obviously, Owen has heard more than enough of those, but he’s making sure to heavily feature the one where Willy tried to dance on — and subsequently fell off of — a slippery bar, because Owen’s view of Willy is not tarnished enough. All he sees is the charm, not the falling flat on his face. Well, unfortunately for Shithead, who was near him at the time, he did not, in fact, fall flat on his face, but instead fell flat on Shithead. The room collectively got a furious talking to after that one, since Shithead was out of commission with a sprained wrist at the start of playoffs.

“How are all of you still alive?” Owen asks, which is an absolutely valid question.

“That is an absolutely valid question,” Joey says. “Anyway it’ll be fun. It’s always a big thing whenever we clinch, all the girlfriends and wives come out—”

— and this is going in the wrong direction —

“And friends and stuff,” Joey says. “It’s a big whole thing, you should come. Just, you know — maybe stay away from any Scouts dancing on the bar for safety.”

“It sounds great,” Owen says with a grin. “Looking forward to it.”

Joey is so gone for that grin.

“Did you want to go out sometime?” Joey blurts out before he can stop himself. “Like. Just the two of us.”

Considering they’re currently out, and it’s just the two of them, that’s probably not very clear, so he’s simultaneously trying to clarify things and also having an out of body experience of being completely aghast with himself because they haven’t won the President’s Trophy yet and also there is absolutely no crowd to disappear into when he adds, “On a date.”

Watching the smile disappear from Owen’s face is like watching a car crash in slow-motion. Joey can’t look away.

“I mean—” Joey says, but there’s no way to backpedal from that, is there? No way for Owen to misinterpret it. Joey was crystal clear.

_Fuck._

“I—” Owen says. “Aren’t you with Nick?”

“What?” Joey says. 

“Like if the relationship’s open, more power to you, he just doesn’t seem like the type to—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Joey asks plaintively, then, “ _Who_ the hell are you talking about?”

“You and Scratch,” Owen says.

“What about us?” Joey asks.

“You’re not together?” Owen asks, sounding just as confused as Joey feels.

“Why would you even _think_ that?” Joey asks.

“Uh, you never stop talking about him?” Owen says. “And you’re always together, and you finish each other’s sentences and are constantly cracking each other up, and you always —”

“Because we’re friends,” Joey interrupts. “Those are friendly things.”

“You don’t seem like you’re just friends,” Owen says. 

“Okay, best friends,” Joey says. “Scratch is straight.”

“There is absolutely no way Nick is straight,” Owen says, with an infuriating amount of confidence. Because Owen’s smarter than Joey, like, objectively, but that doesn’t extend to Scratch. And now Joey’s wondering if it’s a front, an easy out — ‘I know you’re just buddies, but this is a good way to say something to deflect attention from the way you’re totally unattractive to me without hurting your feelings’ or something. “Have you—”

“If you’re not interested in me, you can just say that instead of making stuff up,” Joey says. “Because that’s really shitty, Owen.”

“I’m not making—” Owen says. “You’re seriously not with Nick?”

“ _No_ ,” Joey says.

“But—” Owen says. 

“Can you just tell me if you’re not interested in me instead of saying all this shit about Scratch?” Joey says. “Seriously.”

“Joey,” Owen says, and the look on his face is answer enough.

“I’m just gonna—” Joey says. “I’m gonna go.”

“Joey,” Owen repeats.

“I’m not like — I’ll talk to you later? Like, tomorrow or something,” Joey says. “But I’m feeling shitty and rejected and I just need to go right now.”

“Okay,” Owen says. “I’m really sorry, Joey, I didn’t think—”

“S’alright,” Joey mumbles, even though it isn’t, because he doesn’t think he can handle how that sentence is going to end. Think Joey liked him that way? Think Joey was single? Think Joey was delusional enough to dare consider he was someone that Owen could ever be interested in?

He fumbles for his wallet, hopes like fuck he has cash, even though it’s not likely. He doesn’t know if he can wait for the waiter while Owen’s looking at him, a look he can feel even though he can’t bear to look at Owen right now. Maybe they’ll let him pay up front. Probably. Definitely if he offers a big tip for the inconvenience.

“I’ve got it, Joey,” Owen says, and the gentleness he says it with is almost unbearable.

“Thanks,” Joey says. “I’m gonna—”

“Okay,” Owen repeats, and Joey does what he said he’d do, what he needs to do. 

He goes.


End file.
